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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25505317">Assuage</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOnlyWife/pseuds/TheOnlyWife'>TheOnlyWife</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Venom (Movie 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Cannibalism, Food Issues, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Starvation, Other, Self-Hatred</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:59:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,862</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25505317</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOnlyWife/pseuds/TheOnlyWife</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>At first, being Venom was ‘cool’. He was powerful, fast, and had someone to watch his back. Life, however, was not an action movie.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>118</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Assuage</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eddie was sitting at home, comfortably watching the food network when V first got restless. He could always feel it when they began to get hungry, not unlike a stomach pain from regular hunger.</p>
<p>“<strong>Hungry, Eddie</strong>.”</p>
<p>Eddie sighed, grabbing the remote from the messy table in between him, currently laying back on the couch, and the small T.V. He turned down the sound instead of turning it off, at first.</p>
<p>“Do we have to eat <em>now</em>?” he asked. They had been relaxing from a hard day's work. Having a stay-at-home job like writing articles meant no more relaxation than a regular nine to five. He had to stare at a screen for hours, trying to think of something worth a damn to read about.</p>
<p>“<strong>Yes</strong>.” V responds in his head.</p>
<p>Eddie was getting increasingly worried about, as well as tired of, the amount of food they had to eat. In both hunger departments. One of them put a huge dent in his wallet. The other put a dent on his morals. He doesn’t mention it to V, though. Having another voice in his head was something he had gotten somewhat used to. Only somewhat though.</p>
<p>Eddie hunched forward, arms dangling off of his knees and in between his legs. He took a deep breath in and said “Alright, bud. Let’s go out.”</p>
<p>What happened in between him sitting down and him standing on a rooftop looking for trouble was a blur. He knows, in his mind, that he got off the couch, suited up (or whatever you called it), and stepped out the fire escape. But he couldn’t picture any of it.</p>
<p>It wasn’t unlike a memory blank out to Eddie. He knew he did those things, just like he had stopped a mugger a few minutes ago, but the way he did those things, or what it looked like, was a mystery.</p>
<p>The next crime they stopped, though, he made sure to be aware of. Especially when it turned out to be nothing more than a stupid teenager looking for more money. Eddie had to tell V to put the kid down when he was about to bite his head off.</p>
<p>The kid, rightfully so, was terrified out of his mind. He scrambled to his knees, tripping over a knocked down trash can on his way out of the alley. They didn’t stay long after he left. Just long enough to make sure the young lady, who was out way too late at night, got away safely.</p>
<p>It was a quiet night, all things considered. They ran all around San Francisco, but it was unusually empty. V wanted to stay out longer, given how much he complained about being hungry, but Eddie insisted they go home instead. V complied, if only to keep Eddie happy.</p>
<p>Eddie, on their run home, took the time to think. He was growing increasingly uncomfortable with how aggressive V was. They had to eat a lot, Eddie understood. But eating people, let alone children, made his stomach turn.</p>
<p>He didn’t like the hesitation behind putting a fourteen year old boy they were about to eat down.</p>
<p>It was still dark out when Eddie, as Venom, stepped in through the still unlocked fire escape. V disappeared into his body the second they closed the window shut. It wasn’t the same as taking off a suit - they were connected at all times. It was just a question of who wore who.</p>
<p>But ‘taking off a suit’ was the closest thing Eddie could describe it as. </p>
<p>At V’s request, they eat the chocolate bar Eddie stashed in the fridge for emergencies. They agreed to ditch the tater tots, though. At Eddie’s request, this time.</p>
<p>The only thing left for them to do was sleep. Eddie was the only one who could physically do that, but they both got energy from doing it.</p>
<p>Eddie tried to fall asleep. He switched positions, he turned down the heat, he got up and stretched. Nothing seemed to help. He briefly thought about getting more chocolate, but imagining the taste made him sick. Just how much had they been eating these past months? The fact that he couldn’t remember, or couldn’t count the number, had been a bit scary.</p>
<p>“<strong>We like chocolate</strong>”</p>
<p>Eddie knows that in his mind. Chocolate was a good, delicious thing. A treat to be enjoyed. But he also knows that when he thinks about eating one, it makes his stomach run in circles. He wonders when that had first happened.</p>
<p>“<strong>Eat too much?</strong>”</p>
<p>“I think so, bud…” he says, walking over to turn the thermostat up again. He had been shivering with how cold he had turned it down to in his effort to try and sleep. It was getting so late he could see the sky turning a lighter shade of blue.</p>
<p>Eating too much wasn’t the problem, at least in Eddie’s eyes. It was what, or who, they ate. V saw no problem with it. The klyntars were a hive mind. Even if V was an outcast in their eyes, they all agreed that feeding on other living beings was okay.</p>
<p>But Eddie was not an alien. He was a human with good morals on what is and isn’t okay to eat. Other people were on the list of ‘do not eat’. Especially <em>children</em>. Eddie was beginning to pace back and forth across his living room floor before he even realized.</p>
<p>“<strong>We would be happy to eat anyone Eddie likes. Or dislikes</strong>.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to eat anyone. It doesn’t matter who it is.” Eddie said, running a sweaty hand through his hair. He hated killing people. He hated having to pick his victims. He hated that it wasn’t a choice.</p>
<p>“<strong>We need to feed</strong>.”</p>
<p>“And that makes it ok?!” Eddie snapped, stopping his pacing where he stood. “Can’t you see how fucked up this is?”</p>
<p>Eddie practically threw his body on the couch in frustration. He curled his legs up, wrapped his arms around them, and pressed his hands hard into his head. “I know we have to but if we didn’t...if we never ate again…” he spoke, muffled by his own hands. </p>
<p>He took in a deep breath, finally lifting his face from his knees. Eddie had never considered starvation as a serious option before. Back when he was in the habit of going to the gym, eating healthy, and not having a cannibalistic tagalong in his head, it wasn’t one.</p>
<p>At first, being Venom was ‘cool’. He was powerful, fast, and had someone to watch his back. Life, however, was not an action movie. They messed things up together quite a lot. In dramatic fashion, V gave himself up to save Eddie from the explosion. He hadn’t died, but was instead barely alive inside of Eddie. Being well taken care of in the hospital led to V making a comeback.</p>
<p>Eddie had cried the night V spoke to him for the first time in weeks. He hadn’t realized he’d missed his other’s voice so much until he heard V whisper words of comfort in his head while he sat in the hospital with an IV in his arm.</p>
<p>Faced with the fact that they had to kill and eat people to live had been easy to play off. Find the baddest of guys, intimidate them, and feed. It seemed too simple, now that he thought about it. It was the hardest thing to get used to. He had been taught all his life that killing was something only the truly horrible people did. And now he had blood on his hands. Now he was one of them.</p>
<p>“<strong>We do what we have to</strong>.” V reasons. Eddie wasn’t hearing it. He was a disgusting, murderous man. He’d heard what the police had to say about Venom in the news. He killed people every day, like the sort of serial killer he’d seen on crime shows. </p>
<p>He looked down at his hands. No blood on them today, but what about tomorrow? How many more would have to die for the sake of his life. He held back tears when he thought about being unable to stop himself from hurting a child. He loved V, he really did, but he hated the way being Venom made him feel.</p>
<p>Eddie watches as V manifests a head from his shoulder to let Eddie talk to him better. Or to make Eddie look at him. Both could be true at this point.</p>
<p>“<strong>Eddie</strong>.”</p>
<p>Eddie closed his eyes tightly. It was childish, he knew, to try and ignore his problems. But if he stayed inside forever, where he could just be a normal person. A person who ate properly, worked out, and got a decent night's rest. Then that would be enough.</p>
<p>“<strong>Look at me</strong>.”</p>
<p>Eddie refused to make eye contact, forcing himself to look down, even though his eyes were still closed. “I can’t….” he whispered.</p>
<p>“<strong>Eddie, look at me</strong>.”</p>
<p>It was then that he realized that V had said ‘me’. V never said ‘me’ when talking about them. It was always ‘we’ or ‘us’. Eddie finally opened his eyes and looked up at V, whose face was rather close to his, pearl white eyes looking into his blue eyes.</p>
<p>“<strong>Eddie, you are beautiful. You are kind. You are intelligent.</strong>”</p>
<p>“I was nothing before you found me” Eddie started crying, letting the tears run freely down his face instead of wiping them away. They fogged up his vision, but the muffled sobs behind his hand couldn’t mask what V was saying.</p>
<p>“<strong>Eddie is and always has been perfect.</strong>”</p>
<p>V gently pressed himself into Eddie, going as far as to wrap part of himself down Eddie’s arm and around his hand like a coil. Eddie clung to it, bringing his arm up to his chest and closer to his heart.</p>
<p>“<strong>We are Eddie and Eddie is beautiful</strong>.”</p>
<p>V tightened the coil around Eddie’s arm gently. Eddie felt like V thought holding him tighter would solve all their problems. That if they held onto each other hard enough, things would forever be okay. “<strong><em>We</em> are beautiful</strong>.”</p>
<p>Eddie had gotten up from the couch before he could realize. All he could remember was holding tightly onto the part of V still in his hand while his feet moved. By the time he had sat down on his bed the tears had stopped.</p>
<p>He brought his legs up onto his bed of his own volition, this time. V slinked to his side table, where the remote to the small T.V in his room was. V turned it on, pressing the buttons he knew would lead to the food network they always watched in bed. </p>
<p>Once V found the channel, the volume was turned down until it was relatively soft. Eddie felt the big blanket be wrapped around his shoulders. He grabbed the edges and brought them down so the blanket was covering his whole body. He let himself relax into the pillows behind him.</p>
<p>“<strong>We love you, Eddie</strong>.” V said softly, curling into an amorphous blob on Eddie’s lap. Eddie rested a hand on V, gently stroking him.</p>
<p>“Love you too, bud.”</p>
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